Fwd: Please Stand Against the New Copyright Bill

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 09:38:12PM -0400, Mr Chris Aitken wrote:
> This is probably going to piss off a lot of people, but I'm not (only) 
> trying to be the devil's advocate here, so I'm going to ask anyway:
> 
> Isn't all this about us wanting something for nothing? I mean isn't 
> someone spending emotion, time, and money creating, developing and 
> distributing something that we want it for nothing. And, yeah, I know a 
> lot of what we're talking about is degrees. I mean when a single mother 
> is fined thousands of dollars for downloading a few songs for her kid it 
> seems extreme. Nevertheless, are we not still talking about someone 
> wanting something for nothing?

No it is NOT about wanting something for nothing.  It is about being
fair.  If I buy a CD, itunes song, or whichever, then I have paid for a
copy and should have the right to use it for personal use.  But the big
media wants to control all use as well and wants me to have to pay
seperately for a copy for my ipod, my cd player and anything else I
have.  Paying once isn't enough.  They would love if they could make you
pay everytime you listened to the song, but they haven't quite got that
rammed through anywhere yet.

Same with movies.  If I buy a DVD or a movie download from itunes or
such, why should I not be allowed to put that movie on an ipod from the
DVD to watch it?  Why shouldn't I be allowed to watch the DVD on my
computer running linux (which of course isn't a licensed DVD playing
device).  I paid for it, I just want to use it by myself.  I don't want
to make copies for friends or charge admission for people to watch it on
a big screen.

> Just because you get away with compact cassette taping LPs in the 
> seventies, burning CDs of LPs and CDs in the eighties, burning DVDs of 
> movies in the nineties, and downloading songs via gtkpod to iPod in the 
> 00s, is one entitled to this forever? Should we not be grateful we 
> enjoyed the ride for forty years?

No, it should be perfectly legitimate to move around what you have so
you can actually use it.  If I want to watch a movie on a device for
which no native version is sold, why shouldn't I be able to buy another
version and put it on there for use?

> I know I sound like an idiot writing all this. I actually have read 
> quite a bit of the articles and viewed youtube clips referred to in 
> emails from tlug over the past few weeks, and even had a sit down with 
> Charlie Angus. I just find it hard to make up my mind on all this. For 
> instance, I have recently joined SOCAN and am writing and recording 
> songs with a view to having them published and picked up by recording 
> artists. I feel I should at least consider supporting the system that 
> may (in part) support me some day.

I do want to pay for things and I do.  But when I pay for it I want to
be able to use it on the system of my choice in way I want to enjoy it.
If I like playing my music all random from flac files on my mythtv box
rather than having to buy 200 CD players to put all my CDs in, why the
hell should the big media give a damn?  I am not extracting the CDs to
share on the internet, nor would I extract movies for sharing, I just
want to make them convinient for me to use.  By being convinient to use,
I enjoy it more, and I buy more.  If you make it hard to use the way I
want, then I won't buy it and may in fact go download it from someone
that has worked around any DRM stupidity, just so I can use it in the
way I want to.

> I'd be interested in your thoughts. Seriously.

That is the real issue.

-- 
Len Sorensen
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